Latest high-fructose corn syrup study generates buzz, debate

Latest high-fructose corn syrup study generates buzz, debate

www.cnn.com

Acolytes of "Food Rules" guru Michael Pollan and other well-meaning foodies who've made corn a scapegoat for the nation's health crises have welcomed a new study from Princeton University that suggests high-fructose corn syrup causes more significant weight gain than table sugar...They reported that rats fed water sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup developed more belly fat and had an increased level of circulating triglycerides, fat's chemical form in the body.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I found this interesting and I do believe that HFCS is part of the cause of the obesity problem in America. Since we started to replace cane sugar with HFCS in the 70's, Americans have been getting fatter and fatter.

I do agree with the study that cane sugar is not good for you either but if HFCS is even worse then plain old sugar then I believe it should stop being used so much and we should go back to using sugar in our products. HFCS is found in everthing and is almost unavoidable in your diet unless you prepare your own food from scratch. Besides that I think sugar tastes much better.

What do you think ATS?

www.cnn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

i feel like ive known this my whole life.

i love carbonated sodas. cokes as we call them here....

but its pretty obvious what they do. i say obvious, but i should really say, SHOULD be obvious to people.

when i increase my intake of sodas over water or 100% juices, its quite noticeable the changes. i always develop a little extra cushion

im normally 180lbs, for someone 6'3'' thats about normal. after being extremely lazy and increase in soda intake, i now sit at a comfy 220lbs. lol. still not terrible, but i will be working this off for the spring and summer.

ive been trying to tell people for years that this stuff is bad. try and tell someone its bad after you watch this commercial together...



no matter what you tell people, they just have that same look on their face like you are making it all up, and the tv is their god.

*face palms*

thanks for this s&f

Interesting story, it seems something has caught on in the beverage industry. As small niche sodas have been pushing products with cane sugar it seems the big boys have noticed.

Dr. Pepper is selling a non-hfcs real sugar version called DR. Pepper Heritage.

I too am a big soda drinker and If I have a choice I would choose cane sugar over HFCS. I would also choose glass over cans or plastic as cans & plastic both effect the taste of the product.



[edit on 26-3-2010 by verylowfrequency]

HFCS is in the majority of products Americans consume, even as a kid I used to read the labels of the food my parents bought. Essentially Americans are forced fed this stuff, alternative products without it tend to cost more. About the only way the sheeple might realize this and stop buying HFCS products is if Oprah were to do a special on it and I don't think TPTB would let that happen. I've even heard reports that there is an effort to make HFCS addicting in hopes of getting the rest of the world hooked.

With all the screams on how health care is socialist, they don't realize that the corn subsidies are about as socialist as we can get, farmers are forced to overproduce corn and it sells for less than the production cost at the expense of the tax payer. It is disgusting with what they get away with and no one seems to notice or care.

Originally posted by jrod
HFCS is in the majority of products Americans consume, even as a kid I used to read the labels of the food my parents bought. Essentially Americans are forced fed this stuff, alternative products without it tend to cost more. About the only way the sheeple might realize this and stop buying HFCS products is if Oprah were to do a special on it and I don't think TPTB would let that happen. I've even heard reports that there is an effort to make HFCS addicting in hopes of getting the rest of the world hooked.

With all the screams on how health care is socialist, they don't realize that the corn subsidies are about as socialist as we can get, farmers are forced to overproduce corn and it sells for less than the production cost at the expense of the tax payer. It is disgusting with what they get away with and no one seems to notice or care.

the first sentence you wrote is the exact response i have to the commercial i posted. how can you control your intake of something that is IN EVERYTHING.

some people notice, but you are right, that nothing is being done to save our food in this country.

@ verylowfrequency:
Thanks for sharing that, I have never heard of Dr Pepper Heritage. that is an amazing find !

Mountain Dew throwback is to die for!

I remember Pepsi did the same last year but I could swear that they have something besides sugar in it which is causing an "artificial sweetener"-like aftertaste.

I emailed Pepsi last year about that aftertaste and their reply was simply "our throwback product is sweetened with 100% cane sugar" which, while true, doesn't prevent them adding something else such as aspertame, saccharine etc as a "flavor enhancer" or "other flavors".

I'd like to try the Dr Pepper mentioned earlier.

Luckily we're about an hour away from Dublin TX where there's an old-school Dr Pepper bottler that uses pure cane sugar. Unfortunately they don't deliver up here (25 mile radius I think) but it's good for a yearly day-trip with family

reply to post by TXRabbit


The Pepsi throwback tastes great. Loved it. I am not a big soda drinker but I enjoy a Pepsi sometimes. Did a blind taste test with some friends.
Pepsi throwback made with sugar vs. Pepsi made with HFCS. Everyone chose the Pepsi throwback as the better tasting drink.

No human should be consuming HFCS. It is chemically altered and your body knows it.

Its best to stick with what your human body is familiar with (which is carbs, proteins, and fats that come from NATURAL unprocessed foods). Why would you put foreign material into your body?

I'm glad i live in Germany, even though we have those stupid american fast food "restaurants" like Pizza Hut and McDonald's with all their # (I never eat there and rather starve than buy that crap), basically we have so many laws about food that a certain quality is given and everytime i compare it to the USA, i really can't imagine how americans can eat or drink all the # that gets sold there. I mean everytime i see stuff like Cheese in tubes in movies or sitcoms i wanna puke, it's looks so disgusting

As for Coca Cola i think in germany they use only cane sugar or maybe fructose and not HCFS (i think that's not even allowed here :lol
Well i do drink sometimes Coca Cola but i prefer the german Afri Cola, tastes better and hasn't as much sugar in it and it mixes way better with Jack Daniel's in my oppinon....though i guess people would call it even more unhealty because it has more than twice as much caffeine than Coca Cola or Pepsi

And to think that that crap can not be used under "moderation" because as a cheap preservative is in almost everything you buy in the stores, including dog food, baby food, most sweet beverages and even bread and crackers.

Incredible, moderation by butt.

reply to post by Erasurehead


Not only that, but HFCS is highly addictive. Much more so than sugar. I did a purge for 3 days after a few months of drinking way too much soda. Dear God, I'll tell you that the first two days were VERY painful. I haven't ever gone through withdrawls from a drug before but I have family members who have. Their descriptions pretty much nailed what I went through (just a little more tame than the cold sweats and shakes).

HFCS is a poison. It's cheap to produce thus the wide use. It's cheaper than sugar and until more REAL studies on this come out I don't think it will ever get removed from food stuffs.

What is disgusting is that it is put in MILK! Are you f'ing kidding me?

Originally posted by Erasurehead
reply to post by TXRabbit

 

The Pepsi throwback tastes great. Loved it. I am not a big soda drinker but I enjoy a Pepsi sometimes. Did a blind taste test with some friends.
Pepsi throwback made with sugar vs. Pepsi made with HFCS. Everyone chose the Pepsi throwback as the better tasting drink.

The same for all of the Pepsi drinks. Try the throwback Mt. Dew vs. the regular crap. It's like night and day. They don't even taste CLOSE to the same. It's very disgusting when you think of it. It's a chemical. One that was initially meant to be a new SUPER GLUE. Then again, that could simply be a nutter conspiracy theory. LOL

I think you guys are on to something!

I actually looked into this a few weeks ago thinking that this is exactly why people are fat. I think they put high-fructose corn syrup in everything because our nation grows tons of surpluses of yellow corn that nobody wants and is not nutritious at all. Our bodies can't even fully digest yellow corn.

The Maya and Aztec cultures, who based their culture and food intake on maize (corn), ate BLUE CORN. People in Mexico and Middle America still eat blue corn. It is much more nutritious than the hybrid yellow crap our whole nation cultivates.

The government encourages farmers to grow yellow corn!

If the USDA's food pyramid recommends two to five cups of fruits and vegetables per day, its budget -- mandated by Congress through the Farm Bill -- encourages different behavior altogether.

Under the Farm Bill, the great bulk of USDA largesse flows to five crops: corn, soy, cotton, wheat, and rice. Of the $113.6 billion in commodity subsidy payments doled out by the USDA between 1995 and 2004, corn drew $41.8 billion -- more than cotton, soy, and rice combined. By contrast, apples and sugar beets, the only other fruit or vegetable crops that draw federal subsidies, received $611 million over the same period. (The latter are generally processed into sweeteners.)

The huge corn payouts encourage overproduction, and have helped sustain a long-term trend in falling prices. According to figures from the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, the inflation-adjusted global commodity price for corn plunged 61 percent between 1983 and 2002. Today a bushel, roughly 56 pounds, fetches about $2.

Cheap corn, underwritten by the subsidy program, has changed the diet of every American. It has allowed a few corporations -- including Archer Daniels Midland, the world's largest grain processor -- to create a booming market for high-fructose corn syrup.

HFCS now accounts for nearly half of the caloric sweeteners added to processed food, and is the sole caloric sweetener for mass-market soft drinks. Between 1975 and 1997, per-capita consumption jumped from virtually nothing to 60.4 pounds per year -- equal to about 200 calories per person, per day. Consumption has generally hovered around that level since.

www.grist.org...

Pretty nice of them.

[edit on 26-3-2010 by tooo many pills]

This study merely reiterates what I HOPE is an already well known fact. I have seen commercials trying to advocate high fructose corn syrup being okay in moderation, but honestly why even risk it when you can simply use granulated sugar?

High fructose corn syrup is found in almost everything as McDonald, surely we can all agree this restaurants is terrible for ones health. Coincidence?

McDonald's items containing high fructose corn syrup:

1% Low Fat Chocolate Milk Jug
Baked Apple Pie
Barbeque Sauce
Big Mac Bun
Big Mac Sauce
Biscuit
Butter Garlic Croutons
Chocolate Triple Thick Shake
Coca-Cola Classic
Deluxe Warm Cinnamon Roll
English Muffin
Hi-C Orange Lavaburst
Honey Wheat Roll
Hot Caramel Sundae
Hot Mustard Sauce
Hotcakes
Ketchup
Low Fat Caramel Dip (for Apple Dippers)
McDonaldland Cookies
McFlurry with Oreo Cookies
McRib
Newman's Own Cobb Dressing
Oatmeal Raisin Cookie
POWERade Mountain Blast
Regular Bun
Sesame Seed Bun
Southwestern Chipotle Barbeque Sauce
Sprite
Strawberry Sundae
Strawberry Triple Thick Shake
Sweet 'N Sour Sauce

www.foodfacts.info...

It's very disgusting when you think of it. It's a chemical.

....erm...EVERYTHING is a chemical. that is beside the point.


the prob with HFCS causing fatness, so far as i understand it, is that it is a super-concentrated sweet. the fact that it is super-concentrated causes the body to react to its sugars differently than less-refined sugars.

but even THAT is not the problem.

here is the real problem: our government subsidezes corn.

I don't think it's that HFCS is so chemically different from Sugar. Table Sugar is not cheap to use therefore you are naturally going to use less. Look at the calorie count between the throwbacks and normal beverages. Table sugar beverages have less calories. HCFS beverages also have added salt and caffeine which makes people dry out and want more soda. HCFS beverages are normally way too sweet for me. I feel like i'm swallowing sap and they are oily to boot.

[edit on 26-3-2010 by antonia]

This is very old news.

The Brits did a study several years ago where they fed rats various levels of high fructose corn syrup.

The rats on the high dose regimen got so fat their hearts exploded. HFCS for some reason signals the liver to store fat. I am a firm believer that HFCS is the primary reason for obesity in America. Problem is about 6 million tons of the stuff is manufactured each year in the states and there are a lot of big money people who have no interest in changing that.

Six years ago I moved to Moldova, a little ex-soviet country in Eastern Europe. I immediately lost weight. Moldova allows no preservatives of any kind in food and everything is sweetened with real natural sugar. I can actually buy lunch meat that doesn't make it taste like I am eating a salt sandwich. Before living here I laughed at the "Natural food freaks", now I am a 100% believer. I am convinced that the chemicals added to the food in the states particularly is killing people with obesity, cancer, and who knows what else.

reply to post by expat2368


Thanks for posting. I am also a firm believer that HFCS is the primary reason for obesity in America. I am convinced it is one of the main causes.

I remember growing up in the 70's and 80's and it was rare to see such morbidly obese people. Once in awhile you would run into them. Now its so common you can't avoid them. I think back then Americans liked to drink soda pop and eat burgers, the difference is the HFCS in our food.

i drink juice all the time im a flavor addict
i always used to drink koolaid mixed with sugar then i stopped because everyone said it was bad for me so i switched to pop then i got diabetes

recently i switched back to koolaid about 3 weeks ago and my blood sugar levels have dropped by at least 6-7 points its really to early to say but my numbers have gone down since i switched back to sugar

why corn why not subsidize sugar